On Sunday night, Yahoo!'s own Marc Spears dropped a story that made pretty much every basketball fan in Minnesota uneasy. Kevin Love, the Timberwolves' franchise player and arguably the best power forward in the world, stated that he was unhappy with the state of the roster and wanted general manager David Kahn and the rest of the front office to make some moves.

Here's a sample of his comments, though you should really read the full story:

In an interview with Yahoo! Sports, Love urged Minnesota's management to acquire the necessary talent to make the franchise a contender. If the Timberwolves don't start winning this season, Love isn't sure how long he'll want to be a part of Minnesota's future.

"My patience is not high," Love said. "Would yours be, especially when I'm a big proponent of greatness surrounding itself with greatness? All these [Team USA] guys seem to have great players around them.

"It's tough seeing all these guys that are young and older who have all played in the playoffs. When they start talking about that, I have nothing to talk about. If I don't make the playoffs next year I don't know what will happen." [...]

"I don't know if we will blow up the team again, if I'll be moved," Love said. "I don't know.

"But something has to happen in Minnesota."

Love's comments are a little peculiar in their force, because the Wolves are actually on the path to making the playoffs. Last season, they were serious contenders for one of the final spots in the postseason before Ricky Rubio tore his ACL. It stands to reason that, with reasonable progression for their young players and another year under a very good head coach in Rick Adelman, the Wolves will find themselves right in the thick of playoff contention again next season.

On top of that, Kahn is making a concerted effort to improve Minnesota this offseason. Brandon Roy and his health are considerable question marks, but his presence will undoubtedly improve a very poor shooting guard rotation. And while their offer to restricted free agent Nicolas Batum will be matched by the Portland Trail Blazers, they at least showed initiative in trying to bring him to the team (and, given Batum's glowing comments, they seem to have done a pretty good job in selling him on the Wolves). If Love isn't happy with these moves, then he doesn't have a very good sense of what a small-market franchise like this one can do on the open market in today's NBA. To bring in a star, they'd have to trade Rubio (or, well, Love), and that's just not going to happen.

Yet there's something more to these comments that goes beyond what Kahn has or hasn't done in the first weeks of the offseason. When Love signed his max-level contract extension with Minnesota in January, the front office curiously neglected to give him a fifth year even though Love was perfectly willing to commit himself to the franchise. The compromise was to give him an opt-out clause after the third season, which in practice means that the Wolves disrespected the second-best player in franchise history and then gave him the chance to leave after only three seasons. It was very weird, and perhaps the sign of a franchise that doesn't know exactly what it wants long-term.

Love's extension starts this season, so he theoretically has plenty of time to see if the Wolves develop into a serious contender. But these comments, as illogical as they are after Kahn's efforts this summer, sound like the thoughts of a man who's effectively decided he wants to change franchises whenever the opportunity arises. In effect, Love's doing preparatory public relations work for an exit via free agency or trade. That might sound like a slick maneuver by a player to engineer a move to a bigger franchise like the Los Angeles Lakers, and in many ways it is. But it's worth considering if anyone, no matter the profession, would want to work for employers with a curious sense of their top employee's value. Whether or not they bring in the pieces Love wants, the Wolves might have lost him the minute they didn't add a fifth year to his extension.

Yeah, I'm sick of the 'Superstars' running/ruining the game. Howard has the Magic over a barrel. If they keep him, he'll be unhappy, won't play hard and will leave at the end of the season. But then Howard has pretty much scared off almost all their trade options by refusing to sign an extension with any other team but Brooklyn. I hate the Heat, Knicks, Nets and their Superstars for what they've done to this league. I have so much more respect for teams like the Spurs, Thunder and Bulls. At least they got their star players through the draft.

Back in 1992 when I really started following the NBA, it seemed as though almost every team had their own star player. Well, that's the way the league seemed to promote the game back then. They may have not been at the Superstar level of Lebron, Howard or Rose but they were stars of their team who stayed with their franchise for the majority of their careers because they were promoted in that way. Just about every game had a big matchup. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas David Robinson, Shawn Kemp, Karl Malone, Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwan, Dikembe Mutombo, Dominique Wilkins and Larry Johnson are all names that come to mind. I remember playing NBA Jam and being able to select just about any team and still be happy with my selection. If I played it now, you'd have to try and figure out which 'Superstar' to drop from your lineup on some teams while you wouldn't even bother selecting half the other teams.

I would like to see Love show some loyalty to the team that drafted him and be patient. The Wolves seem to be trying to improve. And half the reason that Love featured in so many highlight packages last season was because of the exciting young point guard who was passing him the ball and not because of him. Yeah, Love was the star of the team, but Rubio was generating all the hype. Love has played for a few seasons and nothing much happened until Rubio arrived.

Last edited by Ringo on Thu Jul 12, 2012 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And I was actually getting excited. After the Magic lose Howard, I didn't think we'd have any whiny divas complaining about their location in the NBA anymore. Apparently, Kevin Love is one of these d-bags who knows what a star he is and is going to raise a stink demanding "a championship roster" or some other unattainable goal and when the Timberwolves inevitably fail to win him a title throughout the duration of his contract, he'll take his game to the friggin Lake Show.

ARRRGGGGGHHHH...

I literally sat through Michael Smith talking yesterday about how great it is that the league only has 3 or 4 teams that historically dominate the standings and what a great marketing stradegy that is. It's the most horrible, self-serving thing I've heard in a really long time. Perhaps it offers us a little insight as to why basketball hosts so many blood-sucking bandwagon fans compared to other sports, but its really a depressing reality.

Unfortunately, it is in fact just that: reality.

For now, the 25 of us "other" teams have the Thunder to root and holler for, but aside from Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, are there any other young stars in this league that have the balls to try and push their teams to the top themselves? Or have we finally reached a generation that believes the easy way out is the best method in every endeavor. Do they not understand what a farce that is.

I love Mitch Richmond; he's my dude and I love seeing him on a Warriors broadcast every chance I get. That being said, does anybody give him credit for being an "NBA Champion"...? For riding the pine on the Lakers, selling out, just to cop that hollow championship ring that nobody will ever remember him winning?